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Influence of Microstructure Randomness on the Shear Behaviour and Compressive Strength of Continuous Carbon Fibre Composites

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Abstract

Axial compressive strength is a key design parameter for CFRP structures. One of its limiting factors is the non-linear shear behaviour of the unidirectional ply. We investigate the estimation of this behaviour from those of its constituents by computational homogenisation with an hexagonal unit cell and different random microstructures with smooth and clustered fibre distributions. A random microstructure without clusterings predicts the shear modulus most closely. However, the modelled shear responses converge at higher loadings so that an hexagonal model is sufficient to estimate the non-linear shear behaviour and in turn give accurate estimations of measured compressive strength.

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Data will be made available on request.

Notes

  1. By arrangement we mean the randomness of the microstructure and not the misalignment or waviness of the fibres.

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Acknowledgements

We thank R. McLendon and H. Ji for their support on RVEs computation and analysis. We thank also R. Perron (CATIA VP R &D) and R. Keswani for their support using 3DEXPERIENCE xGenerative Design 5visual Scripting), P. Dausse and N. Dupuis for advanced meshing definition on RVEs in Structural Model Creation. Finally, J. Klintworth and M. Clarke are acknowledged for discussion.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CATIA Composites, Dassault-Systèmes, Vélizy-Villacoublay, F-78946, France

    Pierre-Yves Méchin & Anastasia Borras

  2. IRDL, UMR CNRS 6027, Univ. Bretagne Sud, Lorient, F-56321, France

    Vincent Keryvin

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  1. Pierre-Yves Méchin
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  2. Anastasia Borras
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PYM and VK supervised the work. AB made the calculations. PYM, AB, VK prepared the figures. PYM and VK wrote the initial draft of the manuscript text. All authors reviewed the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Vincent Keryvin.

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Appendix

Appendix

1.1 Microstructure Generation

A workflow for microstructure generation is shown in Fig. 10. First, the size of the Representative Volume Element (RVE) surface is computed from inputs, including the number of fibres and their diameter (steps 1 and 2). Then, using the number of fibres parameter, points are randomly distributed in a 2D space (xGenerative Design app offer random geometry algorithms) constrained by a minimum distance between points equivalent to the diameter of fibre and the minimum spacing between fibres (step 3). Those geometrical points are then used as the centres for each fibre generated. The size of the RVE is fixed according to the targeted volume fraction. Fibres located on or outside the boundary are excluded or split with the boundary. Removing parts of fibres are introduced on the opposite face to ensure RVE remains periodical (step 4). Fibres are slightly moved to respect minimum spacing between fibres and avoid any overlapping (step 5). A last optimisation is then ran to accurately reach the targeted volume fraction of fibres by slightly extending/reducing the boundary of the RVE (step 6). Using the workflow (Fig. 10), several approaches can be considered for the position of the center of fibres. First, a strategy is to build the first centroid and then building the other points, centroid per centroid considering the minimum distance between fibres set by the user. This methodology referred to as Germination leads to microstructures with low fibres content areas in the RVE, reflected on each RVE generated. A second strategy is based on a smooth distribution of the fibres over the section surface. The position of centroid fulfills constraint of minimum spacing between fibres but additional corrections are made to ensure the right fibre volume fraction is obtained with more distributed fibres position. This second strategy is referred to as Smooth RVE.

Fig. 10
figure 10

Steps of the methodology to build a random RVE model (Germination). At first, inputs are set to support the position of center of fibres. Then fibres sections are set and no-overlapping control is performed to optimize position of fibres. Finally, geometry is extruded. Representative Volume Element (RVE) with random distribution using Germination algorithm

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Méchin, PY., Borras, A. & Keryvin, V. Influence of Microstructure Randomness on the Shear Behaviour and Compressive Strength of Continuous Carbon Fibre Composites. Appl Compos Mater (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10443-024-10230-3

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